SIMON SAYS – Author Visits, Presentations and Workshops by Children’s Writers – Marketing

I always carry business cards since you never know who you might meet on your travels. Even when running errands at the bank or grocery store, at a sporting event with your children, or even at the beach in summer, you may meet someone who is influential on the parent teacher association at their school and may get you the attention of the teacher or librarian.

Word of mouth advertising is always said to be the best, but there are, of course, many ways to promote and market yourself to the school community. It can be tough sometimes to know who to send your material to, since the librarian has sometimes been eliminated at a school and perhaps a teacher is looking after the library, in addition to their other roles at the school. In other schools, you may find a librarian who only works for three days, then is at a different location for the rest of the week.

However, all schools have a principal and that is often the best initial point of contact, although, there is still no guarantee that your material will reach the decision maker.

I do have a flyer outlining all my services, such as editing, manuscript evaluation, online workshops for adults and children, parties and summer camps, corporate writing and so on, as well as school visits, which I have mailed to all the schools in my area and always have on hand at my events.

There is no sure thing in marketing and advertising and you really have to try out a lot of different methods, to determine what works best for you.